Tag Archives: Estate Planning Germany Austria

Why would an English or Scottish solicitor even give a toss about German or Spanish inheritance tax laws or about French or Italian forced heirship rules? Well, for starters, in order to avoid the client’s survivors yelling at him/her some years later because they ran into probate or/and foreign tax problems abroad.

Or, and this is of course the far better reason, to really impress your client with advice on international aspects of estate planning the client would otherwise never have thought of. Are you a solicitor or accountant who advises British clients with assets abroad or relatives living outside the UK? Then you might want to check whether you were already aware of some of the tripwires described in this post on international estate planning and will preparation.

Estate Planning for International Families requires seeing the big Picture

A solicitor who knows the basic principles of other jurisdiction’s succession rules and inheritance tax concepts is much more valuable to his client because such a solicitor can avoid structuring English Wills which may have counterproductive consequences in other countries.

The standard advice given by many English solicitors is still: “If you own assets abroad make a separate Will in each of those countries”. Well, this is simply not enough because such wills need to be synchronised both from a practical probate perspective and in regards to the overall inheritance tax consequences. Also, sometimes the better choice is to deal with the foreign assets directly in the English will.

Since 2003, the succession and tax lawyers of Graf & Partner specialise in international estate planning and will preparation with a strong focus on British-German, American-German, British-Austrian and American-Austrian inheritance cases and probate applications. German lawyer Bernhard Schmeilzl regularly gives presentations and conducts inhouse seminars for British and American lawyers and accountants who advise clients who possess foreign assets or who have relatives abroad who shall inherit or receive gifts or legacies. More on these seminars here: Advising Clients with Assets Abroad

The goal of our seminars on international inheritance and tax law is not to make the English solicitor a Jack of all trades or to expose the solicitor to liability risks. Instead, the goal is to give the solicitor a basic idea about where the English estate planning approach might cause problems elsewhere and then team up with the respective experts from those countries to find the best overall solution for the client and his family.